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''Technology – the missing link''

In ''Digital Virtues'', I wrote about 'software' as the missing link in the Church's language.(Julian Fox, ''Digital Virtues'', Lulu.com July 2007 p 34ff) I would like to extend that idea. Not just software, but the whole field of technology!

There is an acknowledgment in Church teaching that technology is our context, one of moral concern, and a context involved in the common good, but nowhere is there sufficient guidance in Church teaching, it seems to me, for us to make technology a true servant of the common good, unless it is possible to extract this from 30 or more years of Papal teaching, mostly John Paul II's as represented in World Communication Day messages and Encyclicals. Technology is conceived of as a clear trend in human history, with social structures reacting to it. But technology is made by humans and humans therefore hold responsibility, personally and institutionally. There needs to be a proper theory of technology based on Christian principles. The best we have is a kind of reactive theory after technological developments have begun to affect us. We need a more proactive theory of technology. The marketplace is being fundamentally altered by technology – think of the Internet, Wikipedia, Free and Open Source Software, networks on the one hand, and Intellectual Property issues deeply mired in the interests and activities of the major IT Corporations on the other. And the lives of ordinary users are being profoundly affected too.

I cannot claim that ''Digital Virtues'' is anywhere near the level of CST, but I can claim that we need many more examples of efforts like it to apply our Catholic belief and tradition to technology. Let me give you a list of what Daniel Lynch regards as elements of Catholic thought that should be included and extended in such a pursuit. (Some statistics from Daniel R. Lynch, Dartmouth College, referred to in 'Technology and catholic Social Thought', http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/cst.htm : 1) ''The Catechism of the Catholic Church'' (1994) addresses technology only twice, in two paragraphs (2293-2294), out of over 2800. In both cases technology is conjoined with science and scientific research. 2) ''The Compendium of Social Doctrine'' (2004) is full of references to technology – 54 paragraphs out of 583 cited. This is not surprising, given the critical role that technology and technological organization has played in stimulating Catholic Thought. However, in an overwhelming percentage of instances, the word is conjoined with science and/or economy. It rarely has full, independent identity. And the various uses of the word reveal a multitude of referents – technology as subject or object; technological as adverb or adjective; the apparent distinction of technical (procedural?) from technological).

* A Catholic Anthropology – man as social, historical, fallen creature with intrinsic dignity, God-authored and God-seeking

* Social institutions as earthly facilitators of personal development; historical constructions with a transcendental goal * The burden on humans to construct societies which are good – the common good – which is historically contingent, never complete or perfect, but necessarily oriented to the elevation of persons if it is to be authentically “good”. * The Gospel imperatives in the Last Judgment (Mt.) and the Second Great Commandment – enduring social imperatives to be played out in history * The “Apostolate of a Trained Laity” as earthly implementers of the common good. Within this construction we would need to develop some foundational ideas. Necessary elements of a response include: * a new vocabulary which allows us to speak and reason more cogently * an acceptance of new forms of “governance” in the “new” vacuum of authority * a new sense of institutional ethics to order our actions within same * a public theology to convert ethics into authentic human norms. Is there truth to be found in ethical assertions? Or any standard of truth? Or, are we just exploring complexity? Developing arbitrary consensus? * a theoretical approach to corporate and government priorities; relation of people, professions, and communities of faith to those institutions; understanding of the global marketplace as a social institution. * a reinvigorated notion of the Common Good as the object of social constructions, and the proper role of technology in same. * Some specific interpretation of the apostolate of the trained laity in terms of technology; in particular, the professional obligation of engineering. The kinds of issues listed by Lynch above, and some of his suggested procedures for dealing with them, are work for larger institutions, universities, Congregations and the like, and I am convinced that quite an amount of this is already contained in the body of Catholic Social Teaching. But it needs to be brought together in other ways and developed, too, along practical lines, with some gaps still to be filled in. Meanwhile, those of us at the interface, so to speak (I was about to say 'coalface', but the metaphors change, we realise), need to take appropriate proactive action. The possibilities are endless.

Chapter 3 (:nl:)